TO ALL
WHO LOVE THE LITERATURE OF GREECE
THIS POEM IS DEDICATED
By the Author.
BOOK I - TARTARUS.
THE EPIC OF HADES.
In February, when the dawn was slow,
And winds lay still, I gazed upon the fields
Which stretched before me, lifeless, and the stream
Which laboured in the distance to the sea,
Sullen and cold. No force of fancy took
My thought to bloomy June, when all the land
Lay deep in crested grass, and through the dew
The landrail brushed, and the lush banks were set
With strawberries, and the hot noise of bees
Lulled the bright flowers. Rather I seemed to move
Thro' that weird land, Hellenic fancy feigned,
Beyond the fabled river and the bark
Of Charon; and forthwith on every side
Rose the thin throng of ghosts.
First thro' the gloom
Of a dark grove I strayed—a sluggish wood,
Where scarce the faint fires of the setting stars,
Or some cold gleam of half-discovered dawn,
Might pierce the darkling pines. A twilight drear
Brooded o'er all the depths, and filled the dank
And sunken hollows of the rocks with shapes
Of terror,—beckoning hands and noiseless feet
Flitting from shade to shade, wide eyes that stared
With horror, and dumb mouths which seemed to cry,
Yet cried not. An ineffable despair
Hung over them and that dark world and took
The gazer captive, and a mingled pang
Of grief and anger, grown to fierce revolt
And hatred of the Invisible Force which holds
The issue of our lives and binds us fast
Within the net of Fate; as the fisher takes
The little quivering sea-things from the sea
And flings them gasping on the beach to die
Then spreads his net for more. And then again
I knew myself and those, creatures who lie
Safe in the strong grasp of Unchanging Law,
Encompassed round by hands unseen, and chains
Which do support the feeble life that else
Were spent on barren space; and thus I came
To look with less of horror, more of thought,
And bore to see the sight of pain that yet
Should grow to healing, when the concrete stain
Of life and act were purged, and the cleansed soul,
Renewed by the slow wear and waste of time,
Soared after æons of days.
They seemed alone,
Those prisoners, thro' all time. Each soul shut fast
In its own jail of woe, apart, alone,
For evermore alone; no thought of kin,
Or kindly human glance, or fellowship
Of suffering or of sin, made light the load
Of solitary pain. Ay, though they walked
Together, or were prisoned in one cell
With the partners of their wrong, or with strange souls
Which the same Furies tore, they knew them not,
But suffered still alone; as in that shape
Of hell fools build on earth, where hopeless sin
Rots slow in solitude, nor sees the face
Of men, nor hears the sound of speech, nor feels
The touch of human hand, but broods a ghost,
Hating the bare blank cell—the other self,
Which brought it thither—hating man and God,
And all that is or has been.
TANTALUS
A great fear
And pity froze my blood, who seemed to see
A half-remembered form.
An Eastern King
It was who lay in pain. He wore a crown
Upon his aching brow, and his white robe
Was jewelled with fair gems of price, the signs
Of pomp and honour and all luxury,
Which might prevent desire. But as I looked
There came a hunger in the gloating eyes,
A quenchless thirst upon the parching lips,
And such unsatisfied strainings in the hands
Stretched idly forth on what I could not see,
Some fatal food of fancy; that I knew
The undying worm of sense, which frets and gnaws
The unsatisfied stained soul.
Seeing me, he said:
"What? And art thou too damned as I? Dost know
This thirst as I, and see as I the cool
Lymph drawn from thee and mock thy lips; and parch
For ever in continual thirst; and mark
The fair fruit offered to thy hunger fade
Before thy longing eyes? I thought there was
No other as I thro' all the weary lengths
Of Time the gods have made, who pined so long
And found fruition mock him.
Long ago,
When I was young on earth, 'twas a sweet pain
To ride all day in the long chase, and feel
Toil and the summer fire my blood and parch
My lips, while in my father's halls I knew
The cool bath waited, with its marble floor;
And juices from the ripe fruits pressed, and chilled
With snows from far-off peaks; and troops of slaves;
And music and the dance; and fair young forms.
And dalliance, and every joy of sense,
That haunts the dreams of youth, which strength and ease
Corrupt, and vacant hours. Ay, it was sweet
For a while to plunge in these, as fair boys plunge
Naked in summer streams, all veil of shame
Laid by, only the young dear body bathed
And sunk in its delight, while the firm earth,
The soft green pastures gay with innocent flowers,
Or sober harvest fields, show like a dream;
And nought is left, but the young life which floats
Upon the depths of death, to sink, maybe,
And drown in pleasure, or rise at length grown wise
And gain the abandoned shore.
Ah, but at last
The swift desire waxed stronger and more strong,
And feeding on itself, grows tyrannous;
And the parched soul no longer finds delight
In the cool stream of old; nay, this itself,
Smitten by the fire of sense as by a flame,
Holds not its coolness more; and fevered limbs,
Seeking the fresh tides of their youth, may find
No more refreshment, but a cauldron fired
With the fires of nether hell; and a black rage
Usurps the soul, and drives it on to slake
Its thirst with crime and blood.
Longing Desire!
Unsatisfied, sick, impotent Desire!
Oh, I have known it ages long. I knew
Its pain on earth ere yet my life had grown
To its full stature, thro' the weary years
Of manhood, nay, in age itself; I knew
The quenchless weary thirst, unsatisfied
By all the charms of sense, by wealth and power
And homage; always craving, never quenched—
The undying curse of the soul! The ministers
And agents of my will drave far and wide
Through all the land for me, seeking to find
Fresh pleasures for me, who had spent my sum
Of pleasure, and had power, not even in thought,
Nor faculty to enjoy. They tore apart
The sacred claustral doors of home for me,
Defiled the inviolate hearth for me, laid waste
The flower of humble lives, in hope to heal
The sickly fancies of the king, till rose
A cry of pain from all the land; and I
Grew happier for it, since I held the power
To quench desire in blood.
But even thus
The old pain faded not, but swift again
Revived; and thro' the sensual dull lengths
Of my seraglios I stalked, and marked
The glitter of the gems, the precious webs
Plundered from every clime by cruel wars
That strewed the sands with corpses; lovely eyes
That looked no look of love, and fired no more
Thoughts of the flesh; rich meats, and fruits, and wines
Grown flat and savourless; and loathed them all,
And only cared for power; content to shed
Rivers of innocent blood, if only thus
I might appease my thirst. Until I grew
A monster gloating over blood and pain.
Ah, weary, weary days, when every sense
Was satisfied, and nothing left to slake
The parched unhappy soul, except to watch
The writhing limbs and mark the slow blood drip,
Drop after drop, as the life ebbed with it;
In a new thrill of lust, till blood itself
Palled on me, and I knew the fiend I was,
Yet cared not—I who was, brief years ago,
Only a careless boy lapt round with ease,
Stretched by the soft and stealing tide of sense
Which now grew red; nor ever dreamed at all
What Furies lurked beneath it, but had shrunk
In indolent horror from the sight of tears
And misery, and felt my inmost soul
Sicken with the thought of blood. There comes a time
When the insatiate brute within the man,
Weary with wallowing in the mire, leaps forth
Devouring, and the cloven satyr-hoof
Grows to the rending claw, and the lewd leer
To the horrible fanged snarl, and the soul sinks
And leaves the man a devil, all his sin
Grown savourless, and yet he longs to sin
And longs in vain for ever.
Yet, methinks,
It was not for the gods to leave me thus.
I stinted not their worship, building shrines
To all of them; the Goddess of Love I served
With hecatombs, letting the fragrant fumes
Of incense and the costly steam ascend
From victims year by year; nay, my own son
Pelops, my best beloved, I gave to them
Offering, as he must offer who would gain
The great gods' grace, my dearest.
I had gained
Through long and weary orgies that strange sense
Of nothingness and wasted days which blights
The exhausted life, bearing upon its front
Counterfeit knowledge, when the bitter ash
Of Evil, which the sick soul loathes, appears
Like the pure fruit of Wisdom. I had grown
As wizards seem, who mingle sensual rites
And forms impure with murderous spells and dark
Enchantments; till the simple people held
My very weakness wisdom, and believed
That in my blood-stained palace-halls, withdrawn,
I kept the inner mysteries of Zeus
And knew the secret of all Being; who was
A sick and impotent wretch, so sick, so tired,
That even bloodshed palled.
For my stained soul,
Knowing its sin, hastened to purge itself
With every rite and charm which the dark lore
Of priestcraft offered to it. Spells obscene,
The blood of innocent babes, sorceries foul
Muttered at midnight—these could occupy
My weary days; till all my people shrank
To see me, and the mother clasped her child
Who heard the monster pass.
They would not hear.
They listened not—the cold ungrateful gods—
For all my supplications; nay, the more
I sought them were they hidden.
At the last
A dark voice whispered nightly: 'Thou, poor wretch,
That art so sick and impotent, thyself
The source of all thy misery, the great gods
Ask a more precious gift and excellent
Than alien victims which thou prizest not
And givest without a pang. But shouldst thou take
Thy costliest and fairest offering,
'Twere otherwise. The life which thou hast given
Thou mayst recall. Go, offer at the shrine
Thy best belovèd Pelops, and appease
Zeus and the averted gods, and know again
The youth and joy of yore.'
Night after night,
While all the halls were still, and the cold stars
Were fading into dawn, I lay awake
Distraught with warring thoughts, my throbbing brain
Filled with that dreadful voice. I had not shrunk
From blood, but this, the strong son of my youth—
How should I dare this thing? And all day long
I would steal from sight of him and men, and fight
Against the dreadful thought, until the voice
Seared all my burning brain, and clamoured, 'Kill!
Zeus bids thee, and be happy.' Then I rose
At midnight, when the halls were still, and raised
The arras, and stole soft to where my son
Lay sleeping. For one moment on his face
And stalwart limbs I gazed, and marked the rise
And fall of his young breast, and the soft plume
Which drooped upon his brow, and felt a thrill
Of yearning; but the cold voice urging me
Burned me like fire. Three times I gazed and turned
Irresolute, till last it thundered at me,
'Strike, fool! thou art in hell; strike, fool! and lose
The burden of thy chains.' Then with slow step
I crept as creeps the tiger on the deer,
Raised high my arm, shut close my eyes, and plunged
My dagger in his heart.
And then, with a flash,
The veil fell downward from my life and left
Myself to me—the daily sum of sense—
The long continual trouble of desire—
The stain of blood blotting the stain of lust—
The weary foulness of my days, which wrecked
My heart and brain, and left me at the last
A madman and accursèd; and I knew,
Far higher than the sensual slope which held
The gods whom erst I worshipped, a white peak
Of Purity, and a stern voice pealing doom—
Not the mad voice of old—which pierced so deep
Within my life, that with the reeking blade
Wet with the heart's blood of my child I smote
My guilty heart in twain.
Ah! fool, to dream
That the long stain of time might fade and merge
In one poor chrism of blood. They taught of yore,
My priests who flattered me—nor knew at all
The greater God I know, who sits afar
Beyond those earthly shapes, passionless, pure,
And awful as the Dawn—that the gods cared
For costly victims, drinking in the steam
Of sacrifice when the choice hecatombs
Were offered for my wrong. Ah no! there is
No recompense in these, nor any charm
To cleanse the stain of sin, but the long wear
Of suffering, when the soul which seized too much
Of pleasure here, grows righteous by the pain[20]
That doth redress its ill. For what is Right
But equipoise of Nature, alternating
The Too Much and Too Little? Not on earth
The salutary silent forces work
Their final victory, but year on year
Passes, and age on age, and leaves the debt
Unsatisfied, while the o'erburdened soul
Unloads itself in pain.
Therefore it is
I suffer as I suffered ere swift death
Set me not free, no otherwise; and yet
There comes a healing purpose in my pain
I never knew on earth; nor ever here
The once-loved evil grows, only the tale
Of penalties grown greater hourly dwarfs
The accomplished sum of wrong. And yet desire
Pursues me still—sick, impotent desire,
Fiercer than that of earth.
We are ourselves
Our heaven and hell, the joy, the penalty,
The yearning, the fruition. Earth is hell
Or heaven, and yet not only earth; but still,
After the swift soul leaves the gates of death,
The pain grows deeper and less mixed, the joy
Purer and less alloyed, and we are damned
Or blest, as we have lived."
He ceased, with a wail
Like some complaining wind among the pines
Or pent among the fretful ocean caves,
A sick, sad sound.
Then as I looked, I saw
His eyes glare horribly, his dry parched lips
Open, his weary hands stretch idly forth
As if to clutch the air—infinite pain
And mockery of hope. "Seest thou them now?"
He said. "I thirst, I parch, I famish, yet
They still elude me, fair and tempting fruit
And cooling waters. Now they come again.
See, they are in my grasp, they are at my lips,
Now I shall quench me. Nay, again they fly
And mock me. Seest thou them, or am I shut
From hope for ever, hungering, thirsting still,
A madman and in Hell?"
And as I passed
In horror, his large eyes and straining hands
Froze all my soul with pity.
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